D. W. Griffith

David Wark Griffith was a writer/director from the Silent era. He was born on January 22, 1875 in Oldham County, Kentucky. His father, Jacob Wark 'Roaring Jake" Griffith, was a Colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. In 1908, D.W. went to work for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, where he met his future cinematographer, Billy Bitzer. D.W. Griffith was famous for such masterpieces of silent film as Orphans in the Storm, Broken Blossoms and Intolerance. He is most famous today for Birth of the Nation, a piece of pro-KKK propaganda that has been controversial since its premiere in 1915. D.W. Griffith died of a cerebral hemorrhage on July 23, 1948 at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles, California.